


I Am a Fire (You're Gasoline)

by MyLifeUnedited



Series: All We Do [1]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Angst, DADT, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, these two idiots in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 14:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8493538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyLifeUnedited/pseuds/MyLifeUnedited
Summary: On March 2, 1999, Joseph Liebgott spilled beer down the front of David Webster’s shirt and his entire life changed.¤On March 2, 1999, David Webster crashed into Joe Liebgott once again, and the rest, they say, is history.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, three years later I get the prequel out. Sorry in advance. (Title from "Stay the Night" by Zedd ft. Hayley Williams - the song that always makes me think of these two)

 

Joseph Liebgott’s life was defined entirely on dates. Maybe it hadn’t always been that way, but it is the only way he has ever remembered. He was born on May 17, 1980. The oldest of six children, the people at the synagogues often remarked that they were blessed to have a son as their eldest. Of course, then came five daughters that never seemed to shut up, no matter how much Joe begged.

His parents had emigrated from Austria on October 9, 1979. His mother, who was beginning to show signs of pregnancy at that point, had wanted her child born in the United States.

He became bar mitzvah on May 17, 1993. He turned 18 on May 17, 1998. He graduated on June 13, 1998. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on June 15, 1998.

He was deployed to Kosovo on November 21, 1998.

He was shot and killed on February 11, 1999. He was resuscitated one and a half minutes later. He was rushed into emergency surgery another two hours after that, and he was officially discharged on February 13, 1999. On Valentine’s Day of 1999, Joseph “Joe” Liebgott was flown home to San Francisco, California alongside Jimmy “Bear” Thompson and Lewis “Lew” Donovan, who resided in coffins with the American flag folded neatly atop their hard surfaces.

Joseph was greeted by two sets of mourning families and his own; his mother cried into his shoulder while his father wiped at his eyes repeatedly off to the side. All of his sisters were there, also weeping, and Joseph watched one wife collapse on the tarmac under the salutes of twenty-five officers.

Dates were what Joseph remembered the most, and mainly as a coping mechanism to forget the sound of Jimmy’s body hitting the dirty Albanian soil and to forget the burn of a bullet ripping through his stomach. He recited these dates to himself when he inevitably awoke from another nightmare about Lew’s wife crying on the tarmac and hated himself for being relieved he had made it back in one piece.

Dates were what Joseph used to hold himself together, because the drinking didn’t help, his taxi didn’t help, and the pitying looks from his family didn’t help.

On March 2, 1999, Joseph Liebgott spilled beer down the front of David Webster’s shirt and his entire life changed.

*

David Kenyon Webster’s life was defined by books. His mother, a young and intelligent woman with a degree in English Literature from Oxford, she would often read him fantastic bedtime stories, from _The Nine Princes in Amber_ to _The Fifth Horseman_ to _The Catcher in the Rye_.

By his tenth birthday, David had lost count of the number of books he owned after the first hundred. His father often remarked that it was unnecessary for his mother to keep buying him more books, but David loved each one like a piece of his own soul.

When he moved to California in the seventh grade, he read _The Eye of the World_ and let Robert Jordan take his mind far away from his physical reality. When he came home with bruises on his body and blood on his face, his mother read to him from _Richard III_ and _The Twelfth Night_ , because she had taught him that there was no hurt that couldn’t be soothed by a cool towel and Shakespeare. When his father hit his mother for the first time, David shed tears all over _Harry Potter_ while he tried not to hear his own mother’s sobs from the floor below.

 _Maurice_ by E.M. Forster was the dawning of realization that David was not like the other boys at school. For an educated mind, it was ironic that David hadn’t realized his attraction to the same sex until his junior year in high school.

When his application to Harvard was accepted, he celebrated with a fancy dinner with his parents that consisted mostly of silverware tapping against glass plates and stilted conversation, before curling up in his bedroom with his old, worn copy of _The Old Man and the Sea_.

He kissed Joseph Liebgott the night of graduation under a pine tree in Floyd Talbert’s backyard. Joe kissed like he did everything else; like it was a fight to see who would come out victorious. He bit at David’s lip and sucked hard on his neck and tugged on his hair and David had never been so aroused in his entire life.

In the end, some of Floyd’s uncles came outside and Joe leapt away from him like David was on fire. He mumbled out a quick “sorry” before he stumbled back towards the party. Three days later, David heard through the grapevine that Joe enlisted in the Marines and he felt nothing but a deep sense of loss.

He flicked disinterestedly through his copy of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ and found that he couldn’t care enough for Puck’s schemes when his heart felt like it had been beaten to a bloody pulp. Hilarious, because David had always assumed Joe had hated him in high school and while the kiss had been unexpected, it hadn’t been unwanted. The point was, the kiss wasn’t enough for any normal person to be in love, but David had always been anything but normal.

So, he got through the summer, packed up his stuff, and moved across the country to go back to school. He read reports daily about what was happening in Kosovo and he tried to imagine Joe Liebgott, angry, defensive, fiery Joe Liebgott, fighting an enemy in Albania and found he couldn't picture it.

David’s father shot himself that February, and David dropped out of school to go home to his mom and take care of her. He said he would transfer to a college nearby to her, but in all reality, David wasn't sure he wanted to go back to school anyways.

On March 2, 1999, David Webster crashed into Joe Liebgott once again, and the rest, they say, is history.

*

“Shit,” Joe groans.

“Wow, okay,” David shakes out his soaked sleeve and looks at Joe Liebgott.

“Web?”

“Joe,” David nods to him, swallowing harshly around the lump in his throat at the first glance he’s had of Joseph Liebgott in almost a year. It is amazing to him how so short a time can change someone so completely. This man is not the boy who kissed him under a pine tree all those months ago. Instead, David is looking at a man with limp hair and dark circles under his dull eyes.

“What are you – I thought – Harvard?” Joe stammers out. David smiles self-deprecatingly at that and shrugs.

“I dropped out.”

“You…dropped out.” Joe stares at him blankly, as if the sentence doesn’t make any sense. David understands; it’s the same response everyone has every time he says it. _David Webster, dropping out of Harvard? Are we talking about the same person?_

“Yeah,” David nods. “It’s been a rough few months.”

For some reason, this causes Joe to burst into laughter so hard that David finds himself joining in, though he isn’t sure what the joke was. Either way, the light is back in Joe’s eyes, and for David, that’s enough.

“Jeez, Web, come have a drink with me to make up for the one down the front of you.” Joe says, dragging him to one of the booths inside the bustling bar.

They end up talking for two hours, long enough for David to realize he has a deadline for the newspaper job he began the week before and Joe says his shift starts in fifteen minutes.

“I – can I see you again sometime?” David asks as he stands in the doorway of his taxi. Joe’s eyes flick over him and then he breaks into a smug grin.

“Next Friday, meet me at Queen’s Diner at eight pm.” Joe says before throwing him a casual salute and walking off down the sidewalk without a glance backwards. David slides into the taxi in a cheerful daze and is halfway home when he asks the driver, “Where’s Queen’s Diner?”

*

Halfway through their meal of the best steak Joe’s ever tasted, he finally bucks up the courage to say, “We can’t tell anyone we’re seeing each other.”

“What are you talking about?” David frowns at him, setting his knife and fork down.

“I’m in the military, Web.” Joe tells him seriously. “If I get caught, I’ll get thrown out faster than you can say ‘hi-ho silver’.”

“Oh,” David takes a drink from his glass of water and then shifts slightly in his seat. “Well, I…what does that mean for you and me?”

“It means that I like you, Web.” Joe tells him slowly. “But I love the Marine Corps.”

“But you’ve already been discharged. Why would anyone care?”

“Because as of right now, it’s an honorable discharge.” Joe explains. “That can change real quick if they find out I’m a fag.”

David is quiet for a long while after that, staring down at his plate and finding he doesn’t have any appetite left.

They make it outside the diner and Joe stops David with a hand on his arm.

“Web,” Joe sighs. “I’m sorry, and I’ll understand if you want to walk away now. But I need you to decide right now. Because I’ve had too much to deal with already without worrying that you’re going to walk away sometime down the road.”

“I-“ David frowns again at him but doesn’t step away from him. After a long moment of looking at each other, David lets out a deep breath of air.

“Do you want to come back to my place?” He finally asks.

Joe’s smile isn’t as sharp this time. David finds he loves this smile and wants to see it again, as often as he can.

“Yeah, Web, I want to.”

They end up fucking against the wall of David’s living room first, with Joe’s back against the wall and David’s jeans around his ankles. Joe still kisses like he’s fighting a war, and David wonders if maybe Joe thinks he still is.

The second time they fuck, it’s with Joe’s hands fisted into the sheets of David’s bed and David’s hands sliding over every piece of skin he can reach. This time, they take their time. David traces the ugly scar on Joe’s stomach with his lips, his mouth whispering over the skin like a prayer, and Joe tangles his long fingers into the curls on David’s head and pulls him up and close, kissing him long and deep.

David wakes up in the morning to a cold bed and a note in chicken scratch handwriting with Joe’s phone number and a winking face on it. David smiles to himself and lies in bed a moment longer, remembering the smell and taste of Joseph Liebgott and yearning to have it again.

Two nights later, David is plodding through an article on asbestos in an apartment complex across town when he’s interrupted by rapid knocks on his apartment door. He stands and rubs tiredly at his eyes before pulling the door open. Before he can speak, Joe has pushed him back through the door and is sticking his tongue into David’s mouth with an efficiency that David thinks he must have learned from his short time on active duty.

That night, David is awoken to a cry and a jerk next to him. He blinks awake and Joe whimpers, his head turning sharply to the right. David sits up and is kicked in the shin, _hard_ , for his troubles.

“Joe,” David whispers, shaking his shoulder gently. “Joe, wake up!”

Suddenly, a hand is around his throat and he’s staring into the startled brown eyes of the other man. Joe releases his throat hurriedly, jumping off the bed and breathing harshly in the darkness of the room. David is in shock, not sure what’s happening, and he simply stares at Joe while he tries to make sense of what’s just happened.

“Did I – fuck, did I hurt you?” Joe grits out. David shakes his head quickly, reaching out for Joe. After a second of hesitation, Joe allows himself to crawl onto the bed beside David and curl up against his side.

“Do you want to talk about it?” David asks after a long silence, not sure what he should be doing.

“No,” Joe says, his voice quiet and almost scared-sounding.

“Okay.” David nods simply, allowing his fingertips to drag up Joe’s spine before sliding back down.

“I – I’m sorry.” Joe says.

“Don’t be. You didn’t hurt me.” _Except my shin_ , David thinks but doesn’t say.

“I should have warned you.” Joe mumbles.

“It’s fine, Joe.”

“Is it?” Joe pulls back and looks him in the eye, looking determined and defensive. David sighs.

“My dad shot himself last month.” He says into the darkness. Joe stills, his jaw slackening. “That’s why I dropped out of school; my mom needed me here.”

“Your – _Jesus_ , Web!” He stares in shock at David a moment before hugging him tightly. They lay like that for a moment before David chuckles weakly.

“Thank you,”

“What for?” Joe asks tiredly, having started to fall back asleep.

“For not telling me it’s going to be okay. After the fiftieth time, it’s less effective.”

“I’m the last person to be telling anyone it’ll be okay.” Joe sighs.

“Still,” David places a kiss on his temple. “Thank you.”

*

Joseph Liebgott is called before a military review board on August 4, 1999 after being reported for being caught in a compromising act with a member of the same sex. Lt. Nathaniel Fick informs the board that Joe served admirably in combat and took a bullet for his country, with no regard to his sexual orientation. A heated debate ensues with Norman Dike informing the board that when Joseph Liebgott enlisted, he gave up the right to throw his homosexuality around, which causes Lena Riggi to snap that Joseph did not display any indication of his sexual orientation until he had been discharged.

David is sitting on his couch when he gets home. Joe tugs off his tie, unbuttons the top button on his uniform and smiles weakly at his boyfriend.

“They’ve dropped the charges. I am a free man.” David laughs, lunges for him, and they make love on the living room floor.

David asks Joe to move in with him on Thanksgiving day of 1999, and Joe accepts. His sisters help him move boxes while his mother gushes over the neatness of David’s apartment.

“Make sure he cleans up after himself.” She warns David. “This apartment may never look this neat ever again.”

On December 11, 1999, David is fired from the newspaper in a round of budget cuts.

The money trouble begins a few weeks later, because Joe’s taxi can’t make enough to afford the rent or groceries. They fight in the kitchen and have sex in the living room. Two days later, they fight again in the entryway and sleep in separate rooms.

“I can’t do this anymore, Joe.” David says on February 25, 2000. “The fighting, the worrying.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, maybe it’s for the best that we take a break for a little while.”

Joe answers this with a slammed door and radio silence for three days.

On day four, he comes back and packs his stuff silently while David sits in the living room. They do not speak and Joe leaves with his things.

*

They meet again on April 5, 2000. Joseph knows; he keeps track.

It’s at the same bar where they met the second-first time. David is sitting with a blond girl and an Asian man. They are laughing and smiling and Joe wants to hit him so hard that his fingernails leave angry red cuts in his palm.

He sits at the bar and drinks until the bartender cuts him off and then throws him out. He’s still screaming at the bartender’s backside when David steps outside and grabs his arm, tugging him away from the bar and up the sidewalk.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Joe spits at him.

“Joe, you’re plastered. C’mon, I’ll take you home.”

“Don’t _touch_ me.” Joe yanks his arm back and ends up falling on his ass. He blinks in surprise at his new position in the world and then, humiliatingly, he begins to sob. David kneels down beside him and holds him until the sobs turn into shuddery breaths and then into silence. David takes his hand gently, _reverently_ , and kisses his palm.

“Let’s get you home, okay?”

“You left me.” Joe whispers.

“You took your stuff, Joe.”

“You said you wanted a break.”

“I know.” David nods sadly.

“You let me walk away.” Joe says. “Why did you let me walk away?”

“I don’t know.” David shrugs.

It’s a start.

*

David submits a rough draft for his novel on May 14, 2000. He anxiously waits for a phone call while Joe works two jobs: taxi driver and barber.

The call comes on May 29, 2000. They want an edit and then a meeting before they decide to publish. David agrees eagerly and makes love to Joe in their bedroom enthusiastically between bouts of ecstatic laughter and happiness.

On July 16, 2000, the same day David’s book is published, Joe comes home from work to David’s famous grilled cheese sandwiches and he knows that things are going to be alright.

After they’ve eaten, David tugs Joe to his side and they dance lazily in the kitchen while Whitney Houston plays from their shitty stereo. Joe grins into David’s neck and when David pulls away, it’s to pull a thin, white gold band out of his pocket. The inside is inscribed: _mein liebling._

“David,” Joe whispers softly, a gentle exhale into the space between them. He never uses David’s first name; he knows what David means.

“ _Ich liebe dich.”_ David tells him.

“Fuck,” Joe breathes before lunging at him and kissing him harshly. They kiss until they’re breathless and then David slides the ring over Joe’s long finger and it feels like coming home.

*

Book sales go well; Joe never knew so many people were interested in sharks before.

The dreams are getting worse. Joe awakens in a cold sweat more mornings, jolting awake before David can be jostled. He takes up running in the early morning hours since he cannot sleep anyways.

On September 3, 2000, Joe is turning a sharp corner when a car comes out of nowhere and he collides heavily with the windshield.

David wakes up to the shrill ringing of the telephone and he answers tiredly, trying to wake up enough to form coherent sentences.

_“Is this David Webster?”_

“Yes?”

_“This is San Francisco Memorial Hospital calling to inform you that there was an accident this morning involving a Mr. Joseph Liebgott. He had you listed as his emergency contact.”_

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” David says, already tossing aside blankets and trying to find a sweatshirt.

He gets there in eight. The nurse informs him that Joe obtained blunt force trauma to his head and has a broken arm. When David is led into his room, it’s dark and Joe has gauze wrapped tightly around his forehead. His skin is pale and sweaty and he is breathing harshly.

“Joe?” David whispers, reaching for his hand.

“David?” He croaks. His eyes flutter open and then he flinches.

“He’s got a major concussion from the trauma. He’ll need to be kept overnight for observation and extra tests.” The nurse says. David nods absently, grabbing onto his fiancé’s hand. Joe squeezes tight and turns his head slowly to face David, but he doesn’t open his eyes. It is probably for the best.

A half an hour later, David realizes he should call Joe’s mom and he slips out of the hospital room to do just that. Another hour later, Joseph and Anne Liebgott arrive with their four daughters in tow. David warns them that Joe’s head is in bad shape and Anne makes sure they go in one at a time.

Joe is released two days later, on September 5, 2000. He leans heavily on David’s side and David makes sure to slide sunglasses onto his face before they step into the sunny afternoon. He sets Joe up in their bedroom with the curtains drawn and Joe leans against David as he watches a movie and Joe keeps his eyes shut.

“Please don’t ever scare me like that again.” David says that night, cuddled with Joe in their bed.

“Yeah, because I’m so looking to get hit by another car.”

“Joe-“

“I know.” Joe says, squeezing David’s hand.

*

The seasons change and Joe tries to find the perfect ring for David, but none seem right. In desperation, he seeks out his mom for advice and she pats Joe’s cheek.

“When you see it, you’ll know. Don’t lose hope, Joseph.”

On March 30, 2001, he finds it in a small shop on the east side of ‘Frisco. He coughs up the five hundred to pay for it and tucks it into his jacket pocket for safe keeping. The band is white gold and its middle shows curved lines into an intricate pattern that reminds Joe of the Hebrew he’d had to learn for bar mitzvah and also of the crowns of the kings in Shakespeare. Perfect for David Webster.

*

They lazily kiss in bed on March 31, 2001, before Joe gives up the fight and releases David to his fate. Unfortunately, he forgets to give the ring to David. _Oh well,_ he thinks. _We have time._ Five months on a fucking book tour on the east coast. Joe watches his flight leave with a fondness in his heart and a cheesy smile on his face.

He talks to David whenever they can get a spare few minutes between them. Lisa, Joe’s sister, is getting married in June and Elizabeth’s bat mitzvah celebration is in late August. Between book signings and taxiing tourists to and from the bay area, the five months come and go.

At 4:36 AM on September 11, 2001, Joseph Liebgott is awoken by the ringing of his phone. He grabs for it and brings it to his ear, knowing it will only be one person.

“You do realize it’s four in the fucking morning, right?”

 

 


End file.
